Learning to Be a Man

IKEA Hack: Bygel Jewelry Organizer

The Five years ago, I convinced my wife to leave her life and pretty good job to come live with me in Los Angeles. I don’t know how I did it. I must be some kind of superhero and my power is to convince beautiful women to drop everything for me. Fortunately, I’ve only ever used my powers on her.

Like most young couples just starting out, our first apartment was pretty small. It was studio in DC. How we lived there without murdering each other is beyond me. Our second place was a one bedroom in West Hollywood. Then our third apartment was a two bedroom in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. Each place got progressively larger. But they each had one thing in common: not enough closet space.

My wife doesn’t fall into the stereotype you see on House Hunters where she jokes about how the closet isn’t big enough for her sweaters. She’s not that kind of woman. But she does have clothes. She does have jewelry and she does have some shoes. And she is fucking cute when she dresses up. So I’ve always felt guilty for dragging her all the way across the country and never being able to provide the space necessary for her to fully unpack and just be herself.

Now we live in a two bedroom house with a two car garage and a lot more space. I thought when we moved in that this place would give her just what she needed to spread out and get comfortable. Our master bedroom has a walk-in closet. It’s small on the walk-in closet spectrum, but nevertheless, you can walk in it put your shit on and walk out.

One week after moving in, we had a leak in our bathroom. The water seeped through the walls into the closet. We had to tear the closet out and rebuild it. We have since remodeled the bathroom and sheetrocked the closet. I haven’t rebuilt the interior features, however. The reason is I want to do it right. Oh and it cost a lot of money. (In case you don’t remember, I ain’t got no job.)

Right now, our walk-in closet is a collection of IKEA clothes racks. It works but I’m still disappointed that I can’t do more.

Boo hoo, poor me.

Anyway, that’s a long way of telling you that I have a new organization project just for my wife. It’s inexpensive, fun and solves part of the no-closet problem. She’s never really been able to unpack all of her jewelry.

How to Make a Bygel Jewelry Organizer

As you know, your only limit with IKEA is your imagination. (Pretty cheesy but it’s the truth.)

The Bygel series at IKEA has several inexpensive products with a multitude of uses. (I used the dish drainer, the S hooks and the rail in an outdoor kitchen project I’ll blog about soon.)

Step 1: Paint your pieces.

You don’t have to paint them if you don’t want. The metal has a nice look already. But I wanted the whole thing to stand out and add a pop of color to our bedroom. In the past, Ashley and I have been a little scared of color. Our style has been muted for so many years. We promised ourselves we’d be more adventurous with this house. It being our first and all.

Alright, so you’ve painted all the pieces. Don’t forget to paint the heads of your screws so that once you’ve screwed the rails into place they blend in.

Step 2: Mark off the spot on the wall for the Bygel jewelry organizer

Because I have two rails and two baskets, I’m basically creating two levels.

I left a gap between each to hang necklaces from the S hooks. But I didn’t want it to be too high because her tiny lady body can’t reach that high. (Having said that in fairness I must point out that we have the same size hands. That doesn’t mean she has giant man hands, it means I have tiny Donald Trump-size hands. But as Donald Trump said, “I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.”)

The space I had to work with is above her dresser. It measures 61.5 inches x 45 inches.

I calculated her average reach is… I didn’t do that. That’s super nerdy. I asked her on the phone if she thought she could reach up six feet and she thought she could. That’s the extent of my math skills on this one.

So the top rail is at 72 inches, the second is 17 inches below that. Why 17 inches? The basket is 7 inches tall so I put 10 inches between the baskets. That leaves 10 inches below the second basket to the dresser and 11 inches above the top basket to the top of the window. It came out nice. You should hang yours based on your reach and space.

Find the center of your wall and then marked at each point where you’re going to hang a basket. For me it’s at 72 inches from the ground and 45 inches. Then I centered the rail and marked the screw holes on each end.

Post navigation

I'm a writer in Los Angeles. I'm in my mid-thirties and I'm still trying to figure out what it means to be a man. Come here to watch me fuck it up.
You can read some of my writing at The Way I Remember It. If you're looking for a digital agency check out my company Something Creative. And last, but not least, if you're a dog owner and want some of the most amazing dog sh*t bags, check out my company Biz Bagz.